


i wish i could show you more of yourself

by orphan_account



Category: Silicon Valley (TV), Space Force (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Coffee Shops, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutual Pining, Slow Burn, Studying, college parties and tony gets super drunk, cuddling on the couch wooo, why did i include nelson from sv in this you ask? well yes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-26
Updated: 2021-02-01
Packaged: 2021-03-17 00:00:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 8,640
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28965009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: When Chan walked into the college coffee shop for the first time, Tony's life completely changed as Tony unexpectedly fell head over heels for Chan.
Relationships: Chan Kaifang & F. Tony Scarapiducci, Chan Kaifang/F. Tony Scarapiducci
Comments: 6
Kudos: 9





	1. i. fall

**Author's Note:**

> tw for homophobia and mention of drug use  
> also i wrote this back in november and i completely forgot about it holy shit and the title is from tangerine by glass animals

“You’re lucky I need this job, or else I would’ve punched your nose into your skull by now,” Yuri grumbled as he poured coffee into a cup and aggressively pressed a lid on it. 

Tony cheerily patted Yuri on the arm as he walked past the aggravated boy to grab the finished order of coffee. “Aw, c’mon Yuri. You know you know you love me.” 

“No, I don’t,” Yuri responded, and Tony rolled his eyes at his co-workers’ behavior before he brought the cup of coffee close to his face to read the name scrawled in coffee. 

“I have an order of coffee for Cathy! Come get your coffee, Cathy!” Tony called, glancing around the coffee shop to try to spot the person who ordered the coffee. As he held up the coffee and scanned the shop, Tony spotted a boy walking in. 

The boy had obsidian black hair, and he wore a dark green sweatshirt and navy blue jeans. He walked over to an empty table and sat down as he slipped his red backpack off his shoulder and placed it onto the empty chair next to him. Unzipping the backpack, the boy took out a pencil case and furrowed his brows in concentration as he searched through his collection of multi-colored pens. 

“Hi, um, are you going to give me my coffee?” A girl, presumably Cathy, hesitantly asked, pointing at the cup of coffee Tony was still holding in mid-air. 

Tony tore his away from the boy and sheepishly apologized as he handed the coffee to Cathy. “Oh, yeah. Sorry about that! Have a great day.” 

Cathy gave Tony a strained smile, still confused by his strange behavior, before she left the shop. He was lucky that it was four o’clock in the afternoon during the beginning of the fall semester at the college’s least popular coffee shop because he could afford to get distracted without having pissed off college students demanding coffee for a midnight study session. After Cathy left, there were only four people left in the coffee shop, three of them being people who worked at the shop and one of them being the cute boy who was studying by himself.

Turning his attention back to the adorable boy, Tony watched as the boy took out a biology textbook, opened it to a page, and carefully placed a pen where the two pages met so it served as a bookmark; then, he stood up from his seat and walked over to the unattended cash register. Duncan, the third person who was currently on shift, noticed and started to walk over, but Tony scurried over to the cash register before Duncan could get there to seize the opportunity to talk to the boy. 

Putting on a cheery grin, Tony enthusiastically greeted, “Hi! What can I get for you today?” 

“Hi! Can I get, uh, an Americano please?” The boy requested as he looked up at Tony - only then did Tony realize that the boy was about half a foot shorter than him. 

Tony entered the boy’s order into the register and wrote the order in sharpie onto a blank coffee cup. “Do you want anything else?” 

The boy shook his head. “Just the Americano.” 

“Got it. And can I get a name for this order?” Tony poised his sharpie over the coffee cup, his heart racing as he waited to match a name to the boy’s beautiful face. 

“Chan. C-h-a-n,” Chan spelled out, smiling nervously. Nodding, Tony scrawled Chan’s name onto the cup and bit his lip to try to keep the delight off his face.

“Your total is two dollars and fifteen cents.” 

Chan took out his wallet and handed over three dollars. As Tony opened the cash register, prepared to take out coins, Chan stated, “Oh, it’s okay. You can keep the change.”

 _Okay, so you’re good-looking AND kind? Why are you literally the perfect guy?_ is what Tony would’ve said if he had no self-control. What he actually said in response was “Oh, thank you! I’ll call you when your order is ready.” 

As Chan walked back to his table, Tony thought of a brilliant idea and scribbled down a fun fact on the back of the cup before handing it over to Yuri, who glumly accepted the cup and began making the order. Tony watched as Chan concentrated on his textbook and absentmindedly spun his pen between his fingers. He rolled up his sleeves and propped up his head on his hands, his elbows on the countertop. 

Yuri, creeped out by Tony’s staring, clapped a hand on his back and handed him the cup of coffee. Stunned by Yuri’s unexpected gesture, Tony nearly fell over, his elbows sliding off the countertop due to the force of the gesture, but he held the coffee and walked over to the pick-up station, trying to collect himself before he called out, “I have an Americano for Chan.” 

Tony tried not to smile too much as he handed the coffee over to Chan. The afternoon sunlight shone through the glass windows and illuminated the faded freckles on Chan’s cheeks - it was a miracle that Tony didn’t accidentally drop the coffee during the exchange.

“By the way, you should check the other side of the cup.” Tony drummed his fingers against the countertop nervously while Chan turned the cup around and read the fun fact aloud. 

“‘Did you know that the longest chicken flight ever recorded is thirteen seconds?’ First of all, how do you know that...,” Chan paused and read the nametag on Tony’s apron, “Tony? And second of all, where did this happen?” 

“Well,” Tony crossed his arms across his chest, wrinkling his apron slightly, “I watch too many trivia shows to blow off studying so I know a bunch of random facts. Also, I don’t actually know where it happened. I just know that it happened.” 

Chan’s eyes twinkled with amusement as Chan replied, “I’ll take your word for it.” 

With that, Chan returned to his seat and Tony went back to admiring him from a distance, which he wasn’t able to do for long because the evening crowd started rolling in as students came to buy pastries to sneakily munch on during their evening lectures. 

By the time Tony finished taking orders and handing out baked goods to all the evening lecture people, he was disappointed to find that Chan had already left. Some part of him had hoped to speak with Chan, but Tony had no choice but to suffer through the rest of his shift, staring at the table where Chan sat and hoping that he would miraculously return somehow. 

To Tony’s delight, Chan returned the next day during Tony’s shift and the day after that around the same time in the late afternoon. When Tony asked Chan why he came to the coffee shop to study, Chan explained, “My roommate, Nelson, smokes a lot of weed in our dorm room, and it’s really hard to study when the whole room smells like marijuana.” 

But after a few weeks (and Chan was too shy to admit this), Tony became the reason Chan came to the coffee shop every afternoon. Tony was always delighted to see Chan, and he spent most of his shift anticipating Chan’s arrival or brainstorming an impressive fun fact to write on the side of Chan’s coffee cup. Nothing was more rewarding than watching Chan break into a grin when he read the fun fact. 

Although the fun facts served as icebreakers and Chan sometimes shared bits and pieces of his life as Tony took his order, the two never got to converse for longer than a minute. Most of the time, Tony stared at Chan, who was busy diligently studying. Yuri wasn’t too stoked that Tony was spending more time making heart eyes at a random boy than he did taking orders and threatened, “If you keep staring at that boy, I’m going to tell our boss.” 

Tony whipped around, but Duncan was quick to reply. “Just leave him alone. He’s still doing his job.” 

In response to Duncan’s defense, Yuri pressed his lips tightly together and silently fumed as he went back to working the espresso machine. Eventually, Tony’s boss did catch Tony gazing at Chan and scolded Tony for not paying attention during work, but that didn’t stop Tony’s fondness from growing. 

One day, instead of writing a normal fun fact, Tony worked up the nerve to write the message “fun fact: i wish i could hang out with you instead of doing work” on Chan’s cup of coffee. When he handed Chan the cup, Tony nervously watched as Chan turned the cup around and read the message. He didn’t seem to react to it at all and returned to his usual table after getting his drink. 

At first, Tony was crushed that his attempt at getting a chance to know Chan hadn’t worked. But when he glimpsed over at Chan, Tony noticed that the chair that Chan usually placed his backpack on was empty and brightened, realizing that was Chan’s way of giving him permission to talk to him.

“Hey, can you cover for me? Thanks.” Tony patted Duncan’s back, not bothering to hear an answer before he slipped past Yuri and Duncan to get to the tables. Tony smoothly slid into the empty chair next to Chan and vaguely gestured at the textbook he was reading. “What are you studying?” 

“Biology,” Chan answered plainly, still keeping his eyes on his biology textbook. 

As he peeped over at the complicated diagrams in the textbook, Tony made a disgusted face. “Bio is the most boring science.” 

“And what’s your major again?” Chan glanced at Tony, waiting expectantly for an answer. 

“Media and communications.” 

As he closed his textbook, Chan light-heartedly retorted, “Well, then I don’t wanna hear it.” 

“Oh, come on!” exclaimed Tony as he exasperatedly rolled his eyes. “What’s your major then?” 

“Bio-chem engineering,” Chan replied and Tony slammed both his hands down on the table before pointing at Chan. 

“See, that’s also so boring so now it makes sense why you think biology is interesting. I wish I didn’t have to take biology last year.” 

Chan frowned, looking at Tony as he unzipped his backpack and put his textbook in. “Are you a senior?” 

“Yep! And you’re a… junior?” Tony scrunched up his nose as he took a wild stab at the grade Tony was in.

As Chan took a sip of his coffee, his eyes widened in surprise. “How’d you know?” 

“It’s the dead inside look,” explained Tony as he vaguely gestured to Chan’s face. 

Chan raised an eyebrow and angled his body to face Tony. “Don’t all college students have that look?” 

“Yeah,” Tony conceded and shrugged, “but yours has a more ‘I’m a nerdy junior with a fancy science major’ look to it.” 

Despite trying to keep a straight face, Chan couldn’t stifle his laughter. “Fuck you.” 

For the rest of his shift, Tony was able to hold a conversation with Chan for about an hour before he had to scramble back to work upon his boss’s arrival. Even when he went back to taking orders behind the counter, Tony still snuck glances over at Chan every once in a while. 

After that day, Tony became more comfortable with talking to Chan during his shift. Chan grew used to hearing Tony talk about how he constantly pestered the head of the humanities faculty while Tony grew used to hearing Chan talk about his cool biology professor named Dr. Mallory. 

As Chan and Tony began growing closer, Chan started spending more time at the coffee shop and, in time, even stayed late until Tony’s shift finished during the late evening. Usually, by then, it was dark outside so Chan and Tony would walk across the campus to the dorms together. And sometimes, Tony’s shift ended early and Tony walked Chan to his evening class. 

Tony figured out that he and Chan had some of their classes near each other when he spotted Chan walking in the same direction. So, he also started walking with Chan when they were both headed toward their classes that were in lecture halls that were near each other. Oftentimes, Tony excitedly chattered away at Chan’s side, his voice louder than the sounds of crispy leaves crunching underneath his sneakers, as Chan patiently listened with an affectionate smile on his face. 

Slowly, the two memorized each other's schedules simply because they spent so much time around each other when they weren’t in classes. Chan would never admit it, but he walked halfway across the school campus on Thursdays to meet Tony after Tony’s philosophy class ended just so they could get lunch together. 

Similarly, Tony sacrificed an extra hour of sleep on Tuesday mornings so he could walk Chan to his morning class, and on those mornings, Chan made a big deal about pointing out Tony’s messy hair. In response, Tony would run his fingers through his hair and grumble, “I didn’t have time to fix my hair.” 

Chan would simply stand on his tippy toes to brush Tony’s loose curls out of his face and continue on his way to class with Tony by his side. 

After about a month of Chan and Tony spending time together at the coffee shop and between classes, Chan finally felt comfortable enough to invite Tony into his dorm room. The two were walking back to their dorms together after Tony’s shift had ended that evening and Tony was detailing what had happened during his shift before Chan arrived. 

“And this guy just straight up starts taking sugar packets and pouring them into his frappuccino like there’s no tomorrow. It was insane,” Tony laughed, his arm brushing up against Chan’s as they walked side by side. 

Chan raised his eyebrows in disbelief. “All this because he thought the frappuccino he ordered wasn't sweet enough?” 

“Yep,” Tony swiveled around on his heel and started walking backward while still facing Chan as he headed to his dorm, located a few buildings away. “Anyways, see-” 

“Actually, do you want to come up to my dorm room? I think my roommate’s gonna be out for a bit,” Chan blurted and Tony paused mid-step. Fidgeting with the drawstrings of his hoodie, Chan anxiously waited as Tony mulled over his proposal.

“Is the coffee at our shop so good that you’re inviting me to your dorm room?” Tony joked as he sauntered back to Chan’s side, and Chan exhaled in relief, shaking his head at Tony’s question. 

“Yes, I’m inviting you just because the coffee is _that_ good,” Chan deadpanned, opening the front door of the dorm building by pressing his keycard against the pad. As he held open the door, Chan gestured to the entrance, “Gentlemen first.” 

“Why thank you!” Tony smiled radiantly as he stepped into the building, and Chan glanced down at his shoes in hopes of concealing the blush spreading across his face. 

When Chan led Tony to the dorm room that he and his roommate, Nelson, shared, the first part of the room Tony noticed was the wall adjacent to the bed on the left side. “Oh my god! You have glow-in-the-dark stars on your walls? That’s so cool!”

Chan closed the door behind the two and sarcastically clarified, “I’m not a nerd, by the way.”

Each side of the dorm mirrored the other: there was a bed, a desk, and a closet on the left side, and those were found on the right side of the room as well. Chan’s side was presumably on the left as that was the wall with glow-in-the-dark stars and posters of Marvel movies stuck on the wall. 

As Tony laid down on Chan’s bed, Chan took a seat on the chair at his desk and watched as Tony stretched his arms and legs out. He picked up a framed photo that was on Chan’s bed stand and gasped, “Is this a picture of you and your family?” 

“Yep, that’s me and my family,” Chan grinned as he observed as Tony brought the photo closer to his face to get a closer look at his details of the photo. 

As Tony placed the photo back, Tony’s eyes brightened and he sat upright. “Wait, come sit next to me on the bed for a second.” 

Chan frowned and reluctantly took a seat down next to Tony on his bed. His heart started racing as Tony scooted next to Chan, his arm pressed up next to Chan’s. With a devilish grin, Tony inquired, “Are you ticklish?” 

“Uh, I don’t know,” Chan fidgeted with his hands in his lap, trying to avoid eye contact out of fear that he wouldn’t reveal the fact that he was trying to hide his affection. “Why?” 

Before Chan could react, Tony viciously attacked him with tickles to the point where he was completely lying on top of Chan, who was completely helpless as he succumbed to Tony’s tickles, too busy laughing to get a word out. They were both so occupied that they didn’t hear the door unlocking and Nelson stepping into the room, so it was a shock to hear Nelson’s voice. 

“Oh, whoops. My bad. I didn’t you guys were…” Nelson trailed off, backing out of the room. Tony rolled off Chan and they both sat upright, trying to fix their clothing. Apologetically raising a hand to let the two know that he would be heading out, Nelson continued, “I’ll leave. Next time, just put a sock on the door in case I come back early.” 

“Wait, what? Nelson, we weren’t fucking,” Chan protested, but by then, Nelson was already out of the dorm room. Quickly hopping off of his bed, Chan hurried out of the dorm room and caught up to Nelson, who was only a few paces away from the room. “Dude, I promise you we weren’t doing anything. I swear.” 

Nelson shook his head and tugged down on his blue and pink striped t-shirt. “No, it’s cool, man. I won’t tell anybody.” 

“Seriously, we’re not fucking. He’s just a good friend, okay?” Chan insisted. 

Finally, Nelson seemed to accept that Chan was telling the truth and nodded. “Okay.” 

Letting out a breath of relief, Chan, glad that he had cleared things up, returned to the room and sat down next to Tony on the bed after closing the door. From the guilty look on Tony’s face, Chan figured that Tony had overhead his conversation with Nelson. 

“Sorry if I made you uncomfortable with the whole tickling thing,” Tony apologized, shifting uncomfortably in the bed as he became aware of just how physically close he was to Chan at that moment. 

“Oh, don’t worry about it. I wasn’t uncomfortable or anything. I just wanted to clear stuff up with Nelson.”

Tony sighed, visibly relieved that Chan didn’t hate his guts after Nelson walked in on them, and tried to lighten the mood. “Well, now that I know you’re ticklish, you better watch your back.” 

Chan grabbed a pillow and chucked it at Tony, who deflected it with ease and watched as it bounced onto the floor. “You’re a piece of shit, Scarapiducci.” 

“You love it,” Tony countered, sticking his tongue out at Chan, and Chan simply rolled his eyes and shook his eyes, acting annoyed when he secretly found Tony’s behavior endearing. 

As fall went on, Chan invited Tony to his dorm more often and continued to show up to the coffee shop every afternoon, except for the day he had to stay after class to finish his research in the school’s laboratory.

On that afternoon, Tony awaited Chan’s arrival but when the evening crowd started rolling in and there was no sign of Chan, Tony became worried. Duncan reassured, “He’s probably just busy.” 

Still, Tony was concerned that Chan had gotten in trouble and let Chan about fifty text messages asking if he was in any danger. Chan replied to Tony’s text messages at eight in the evening to let Tony know he wasn’t dead and apologized for not visiting the coffee shop that afternoon, removing any anxieties Tony had about Chan’s safety. 

Halfway through fall, Tony decided to convince Chan to attend a football game with him. As they sat at Chan’s regular table together, Tony brought up the topic of football seemingly out of the blue. “Hey, what are your thoughts on football? Because you should totally come with me to the football game on Friday night.”

“I don’t know if you can tell, but I’m not exactly a sports person,” Chan replied, tapping the back of his pencil against the surface of the table. 

“Please? It’ll be fun. I promise,” begged Tony - clasping his hands together dramatically, Tony made puppy dog eyes in an attempt to further sway Chan to agree to go with him.

Chan groaned and surrendered, “Fine, I’ll go with you.” 

Squealing happily, Tony threw his arms around Chan’s shoulders, making Chan involuntarily crack a smile. 

On the evening of the football game, Chan picked out a nice black and white striped t-shirt and denim jacket adorned with a pride pin. Nelson peeked over his Nintendo Switch at one point to look at how Chan was fixing his hair in the mirror but decided to remain silent as he recalled the way Chan reacted when he thought he and Tony were together.

In all honesty, Chan had no intention of paying attention to the game but when he saw Tony was bouncing up and down with excitement, Chan managed to pretend that he was somewhat interested in the people running across the giant field. 

About a quarter of the way into the game, Tony pointed at the cheerleaders waving their pom-poms and asked, “The cheerleaders are kinda cute. Would you ever date one?” 

Chan was thrown off guard by Tony’s question. He assumed that Tony would’ve guessed that he was gay from the pride pin on his jacket. “Oh, uh, I’m actually not into girls.” 

For a moment, Chan was worried that Tony would react to this news badly. Instead, Tony adjusted his question, unbothered by Chan’s statement. “Okay, then what about the football players? Would you date any of them?” 

“Nah, football players kinda scare me. I’m more into tall, lanky dudes,” replied Chan, grateful that Tony hadn’t turned out to be homophobic. 

“Well, I’m sure you’ll find somebody,” Tony remarked, his eyes scanning the crowd as if he was looking for somebody who fit that description, but Chan’s eyes were on him. 

As Chan expected, the rest of the football game was relatively boring as he didn’t understand what was going on. Watching a bunch of bulky guys tackle each other and sprint towards a line under the blindingly bright lights of the stadium felt kind of pointless, but Chan enjoyed seeing Tony clap and cheer whenever the home team scored points. 

Once the game was over, Tony and Chan walked out of the stadium together, and only then did Chan realize how cold it had gotten. To be fair, the college was in Boston in the middle of fall so it made sense that the night air was so cold that Chan could see his breath forming under the dim light of the street lamps. Tony must’ve noticed that Chan was shivering because he asked, “Are you cold?” 

“No, I’m fine,” Chan lied. But before Chan even finished speaking, Tony shrugged his black bomber jacket off and draped it around Chan’s shoulders. Chan pulled Tony’s jacket tighter around his torso and beamed, “Thanks.” 

“No problem.” Tony casually placed his arm across Chan’s shoulders as he and Chan headed towards Chan’s dorms, and Chan hoped that if Tony noticed his rosy cheeks, he would simply assume they were a product of the frigid air. 

As the two friends walked together, Tony was talking about how happy he was about the home team winning the game and how he won the bet he made with some friends when he and Chan heard somebody randomly call, “Hey, look at those gay ass motherfuckers!” 

Chan had no clue whether the person who shouted had seen his pride pin or just assumed that he and Tony were together from the way they were walking so closely together; either way, he settled on gritting his teeth and ignoring the person. Tony, however, whipped around to glare at the guy who yelled at him and narrowed his eyes as he demanded, “What did you just say?” 

The guy simply smirked haughtily, knowing that Tony had heard what he shouted clearly, and his friends, who were standing around him in a loose cluster, hid their amused chuckles poorly. Before Chan could react, Tony walked up to the boy and loomed over him as he was about an entire head taller than him. “Look me in the eyes and say it again.” 

Before the guy could even open his mouth to get a full word out, Tony punched him in the face so hard, the boy stumbled backward, clutching at the spot where Tony’s fist had collided with his mouth. The boy tried to steady himself but Tony punched him again in the jaw, causing the boy to nearly collapse. The guy’s friends quickly gathered around him, clearly worried that Tony had hurt him badly, and Chan wrapped an arm around Tony’s waist and yanked Tony back before he could lurch forward and beat up the guy further. 

“C’mon, let’s go,” Chan directed, pulling Tony by the arm away from the scene. Tony winced slightly when he noticed that his knuckles were starting to bruise slightly from the punch. Apparently, Tony’s action was enough to shut the homophobe up because he didn’t call after Chan and Tony as the two walked away. 

When Tony walked Chan to the entrance of his dorm, he was prepared to leave to go back to his dorm room, but Chan dragged him inside the dorm and led him to the bathroom, which was thankfully empty since it was a Friday night and people were probably too busy getting wasted rather than brushing their teeth and preparing to go sleep. 

“Stand here,” Chan instructed, guiding Tony to the sink, and sat on the dry spot on the counter between sinks. Chan handed Tony his bomber jacket back and rolled up the sleeves of his denim jacket, proceeding to turn on the sink and carefully hold Tony’s hand with the bruised knuckles under the warm water. 

As Chan watched the cold water streamed over Tony’s bruised knuckles, he softly remarked, “Thank you for punching that guy. But you didn’t have to do that. I’ve lived with stuff like that my whole life and I’ve kinda learned to tune it out.” 

“I’m sorry to hear that. You deserve better,” Tony earnestly replied, watching as Chan turned off the faucet, grabbed a towel, and tenderly dried Tony’s knuckles, careful not to press too hard. The cold water had dulled the pain, but Tony still had had to try not to suck in a sharp breath when Chan pressed the towel against his knuckles. 

“Thank you.” Chan took a band-aid from a first-aid kit conveniently placed on one of the shelves in the bathroom to apply on a small cut Tony had between his knuckles. After putting the band-aid on Tony’s knuckles, Chan lifted his eyes to meet Tony’s, and the world seemed to stop as they both shared a warm smile. 

Chan cleared his throat and broke the gaze as he turned to place the first-aid kit back to its original place. “Are you sure you’ll be okay going back to your dorm by yourself?” 

Tony flashed another grateful smile at Chan as they walked out of the bathroom together. “Yeah, my knuckles don’t hurt that much anymore. Thank you.” 

“No problem. Thank you for defending my honor today.” Chan held the door open, letting Tony leave the building. 

Tony turned around to give Chan a mock salute and proceeded to walk back to his dorm. Chan didn’t even realize he had been standing in the doorway watching Tony leave for longer than he intended when a gust of chilly wind blew past him. He shut the door and headed back to his dorm with only Tony on his mind.


	2. ii. winter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mentions of drinking + alcohol in this chapter

Especially since there was more than a month left before finals, the last place Tony expected himself to be was in a library. In fact, the last place Tony _wanted_ to be was the school library, but Chan took finals seriously and wanted to get a head start on studying. 

“How are you not even stressed about finals?” Chan muttered in a low voice as he stood up from the table he and Tony were sitting at. 

Tony followed his lead as Chan ventured into the science section, which was filled with rows and rows of thick books with boring names. As Tony followed Chan down an aisle with books about biochemistry, he proudly whispered, “I’ll be fine. Not to brag, but I’m, like, really good at failing finals but somehow still passing the class.” 

Noticing that Chan had stopped and was peering up at a green book on the top shelf, Tony casually stood up on his tippy toes to grab the book and handed it to Chan, who gave him a small smile of appreciation. As they walked back to the table they were sitting at, Tony continued, “That’s actually how I got my nickname, F. Tony. Later on, people started calling me Fuck Tony because they thought calling me Fuck Tony would make me shut up.” 

“Let me guess: it didn’t work,” Chan dryly retorted as he took a seat down and picked up his colorful pens. Tony didn’t quite understand Chan’s obsession with stationery as Chan seemed to have multi-color pens and cute erasers with him whenever he studied, but he loved Chan’s little quirks. 

“Nope,” Tony cheerfully confirmed, watching Chan flip through the pages of the book Tony had gotten for him. 

Out of the blue, Tony’s phone started ringing and Tony hissed as he took his phone out of his pocket and denied the call. By the time he silenced the ringing, Tony was already the subject of glares from other students who were in the library. Tony, upon calming down after the mild panic, checked the caller ID and found that one of his friends, Jason, had called him. 

A second later, Tony received a text from Jason: _Where r u? Me and Theo are at the shopping center. Gonna shoplift. Wanna join?_

As much as Tony thought shoplifting was much more fun than studying in a library, when he glanced over his phone to see Chan focusing on reading his book, Tony responded to the text: _hanging out with chan, sorry :( have fun!_

“Who called you?” Chan questioned in a hushed voice, leaning a little closer to Tony so he didn’t have to speak as loudly.

Tony absentmindedly toyed with his phone as he answered, “Just one of my friends. Jason. Do you know him? He’s from the Psi Alpha frat,” 

“You’re friends with frat boys?” Clearly amused by this, Chan pressed his lips together to try to contain his giggles. 

“They’re not all that bad.” Tony looked down at his phone screen, which was lit up by a new text from Jason. _Fine. Have fun with your boyfriend._ “Okay, maybe they’re a little annoying but they’re fine for the most part.” 

The librarian, who had been eyeing Chan and Tony the whole time, shushed them loudly from her place behind the check-out counter. Tony clamped his mouth shut diligently, but when the librarian turned her back away, Tony gave her the middle finger. 

Chan covered his mouth with a hand and scribbled something down in his notebook before passing it to Tony. In bright blue ink, Chan had scribbled, “You’re so immature.” 

Grabbing a red pen from Chan’s pile of pens, Tony doodled a cartoon of the librarian as a dragon with fire spewing out of her mouth and handed the notebook back to Chan, who almost burst into laughter when he saw Tony’s drawing. That was when Tony decided that the feeling he had when he made Chan laugh was much better than any adrenaline rush shoplifting with his friends could give him. 

Later that evening, Tony found several voicemails from Jason, who seemed to have sent them in a rush. While listening to the voicemails, Tony was able to make out that on their shoplifting trip, Theo and Jason had run from the cops and escaped by hiding in a clothing store. Usually, Tony would feel left out as he missed out on all the fun, but he didn’t mind not seeking thrill with his friends because he enjoyed the time he spent with Chan. 

But Tony still felt guilty for turning down Jason’s offer. So he decided to make it up by accepting Jason’s invite to the party at his frat house later that week. And even though he could go alone and be fine, Tony invited Chan to come with him.

“Chan, you can’t hole yourself up in your dorm room all the time! You have to go out and have some fun so you should just come to the party with me,” Tony argued while Chan stood near the pick-up counter, waiting for his usual order to be finished.

“Do you notice how you’re always the one inviting me to things?” 

“I know you don’t want to go out, but you have to admit that you always have a good time whenever we go somewhere together, right?” Tony pointed out, and Chan fell silent, unwilling to admit that Tony was right. Chan’s silence was basically a victory for Tony, who cheerily continued, “See! I’m a fun person.” 

“This is the last time I’m agreeing to go somewhere with you,” Chan warned as Tony handed him his drink. 

Tony joked, “Good thing you agreed. If you said no, then I wouldn’t have given you your drink.” 

“Sure,” Chan deadpanned, knowing that Tony would never follow through with such a threat.

Chan was nervous about attending the party because he knew it would be awkward for him, an introvert who hated being around large crowds of people. Still, he was willing to stick it out for Tony’s benefit, like he always did. 

When Chan and Tony arrived at the party together, Chan expected that they would make a quiet entrance and nobody would even notice their arrival until Tony did something stupid and bold. But the moment Tony and Chan stepped into the frat house, Theo spotted Tony and shouted obnoxiously, “Tony! You brought your boyfriend!” 

“He’s not my- He’s my friend” Tony protested at the same time Chan said, “We’re not- yeah.” 

Theo blatantly ignored the two’s remarks as he sauntered over and wrapped an arm around both Chan’s and Tony’s shoulders. “We’re glad to have you here. Tony, the keg in the corner has your name on it. Wanna try it out?” 

“You bet!” As Tony was dragged away by Theo, he mouthed ‘Sorry’ to Chan and flashed a quick apologetic smile before he disappeared into the crowd, leaving Chan to fend for himself. 

At first, Chan tried to keep to himself, opting to grab a cup of beer and find a quiet corner to observe all the action. But when he bumped into one of his classmates and struck up a conversation, Chan relaxed and allowed himself to enjoy the party. 

About an hour later, Chan remembered that Tony was somewhere and excused himself from the conversation to find his friend. It didn’t take Chan long to find Tony, who was whooping loudly as he egged his friend who was doing shots on. When Tony spotted Chan, he yelled over the sound of the music blasting, “Chan! You’re here!” 

While making his way over to Chan, Tony nearly tripped over his own feet and stumbled. Chan rushed over and caught him before he could fall flat on his face. He carefully moved one of Tony’s arms around his shoulders to support Tony’s weight as Tony leaned all his weight against Chan, barely able to stand on his own. 

“Tony, let’s go. You’re too drunk to be here.” Chan groaned as he dragged Tony away from the crowd gathering around the person doing shots. 

“But it’s so fuuuuuun,” Tony complained, but Chan simply ignored him and kept walking until they were both outside of the frat house. 

“You know what else is fun? Going back to your dorm.” As Chan continued to support Tony while walking towards the dorms, he briefly stopped to reach into Tony’s pocket to find Tony’s dorm keycard. After a minute of searching Tony’s pockets, Chan realized that Tony must’ve lost it and sighed, “Okay, new plan. We’re going to my dorm.” 

“But what about Nelson? Didn’t you say something, like, that you don’t want him to see us?” Tony frowned, trying to piece together words in an attempt to sound coherent. 

“He won’t mind. He’s probably out with friends now but we’ll both be asleep by the time he comes back,” Chan replied as they approached the building Chan’s dorm was in. He was able to get him and Tony into the building by pushing the door open with one foot and holding it open with one arm long enough to get Tony inside. 

“You’re always so nice to me, y’know. I just think you’re sooooo nice,” Tony proclaimed dramatically and Chan flashed a strained smile at somebody walking past them in the hallway. 

Chan absentmindedly responded with “Mhm. Yep.” as he skillfully unlocked the door to his dorm room and got Tony inside. Once Chan and Tony were both inside the room, Chan took a deep breath, glad that he had successfully gotten Tony into the dorm without anything going awry. He guided Tony over the bed and, with substantial effort, carried him bridal style onto it before sitting on the bed himself. 

It was impressive that Tony was able to sit upright considering that he looked like he was about to fall over at any second. Chan faced Tony as he tried to help the drunk boy take his jacket off so they could sleep. He was too focused on the task at hand to notice that Tony was staring at him with wide eyes. 

When Chan finally got Tony’s jacket off and tossed it onto the chair near his desk, he turned back to face Tony and was shocked to find that Tony was leaning in, his face inches away from Chan’s. Chan quickly backed away with a shocked expression. “Woah, wait. What are you doing?” 

“What does it look like I’m tryna do?” Tony slurred. He had a smirk on his face but seemed barely conscious enough to comprehend what he was doing. 

Chan shook his head and gently pushed Tony, who was leaning in to kiss Chan again, away. “You’re drunk. Go sleep it off.” 

“Only if you sleep here with me,” Tony declared as he flopped backward onto the blankets on the bed. 

“Okay,” Chan yielded as he lay down in bed and turned off the lights. Tony instinctively wrapped an arm around Chan’s waist and pulled him closer. Chan didn’t seem to mind at all. The two fit perfectly together like pieces of a puzzle. 

Exhausted, Chan closed his eyes and sleepily mumbled, “Night.” 

“Night,” Tony muttered, and soon, Chan and Tony were fast asleep and sleeping peacefully, curled up next to each other. 

The next morning, Tony woke up with a pounding headache and winced as he sat upright, taking a moment to figure out where he was. He was confused to see that there was another bed on the other side of the room with another person that he didn’t recognize and rubbed his eyes, wondering if he was hallucinating. 

Chan, who was already up, spotted Tony and hurried over to his side to hand him a few Advil pills and a glass of water. Tony thanked him and downed the pills with the glass of water, chugging every last drop. As Chan watched him, he tried to maintain a neutral tone as he asked, “So, do you remember anything that happened last night?” 

Shaking his head, Tony made a face and handed the empty glass back to Chan. “Honestly, no. I vaguely remember doing a keg stand but other than that, I don’t remember a single thing.” 

“Oh, okay. Cool. Yeah, nothing happened anyways. You were just pretty drunk.” Chan didn’t know whether he should feel relieved or not about the fact that Tony’s move to make a kiss was simply a drunken impulse and nothing more. He was certain that Tony thought of him as just a friend and decided to brush off the previous night’s events.   
  


“Yeah, I can tell from the way my head feels like it’s squeezing the life out of my brain,” Tony grumbled, pressing his fingertips to his forehead. “Also, is Nelson on the other bed, or am I seeing things? I think I forgot to take out my contacts last night so now my vision is all messed up.” 

“Yep, that’s Nelson. He got back sometime last night when we were both asleep.” 

Nelson, who was sitting in his bed with his blankets bundled around him and holding a Nintendo Switch, looked over at Tony. “Oh, hey. I forgot you’re still here. You spend so much time here I sometimes forget you don’t room with us.” 

“Sometimes I forget that too,” Tony yawned and got out of bed. 

As the season shifted into winter, the days grew colder and colder. Snow gathered on rooftops and fresh frost coated the grass in the early mornings. And Chan found a second reason for his frequent visits to the coffee shop: warmth.

Sometimes, the heating system in Chan’s dorm would refuse to function properly so Chan found himself spending additional hours in the evening in the coffee shop, basking in the warmth of the shop. When the shop was closed, Chan went to Tony’s dorm and asked to stay over so he wouldn’t freeze to death in his dorm room; Tony never hesitated to say yes. 

Then, the first official snow day of the year arrived. All classes were canceled due to a large amount of snowfall and students were expected to stay cooped up in their dorm rooms, which is why Tony was surprised when he heard a knock on his door. He opened the door to find Chan standing at his door, bundled up in a puffy jacket. 

“Chan? What are you doing? Come in.” Tony held open the door, letting Chan come inside his room. 

“It’s fucking freezing outside. I’m wearing, like, four layers and I still can’t feel my fingers,” Chan complained as he took off his puffy jacket and sat down on the couch, his eyes flickering towards the TV screen. 

Tony sat down next to him and frowned. “Is the heating not working again?” 

“No, the heating is working fine. I just wanted to spend the day off with you,” Chan plainly replied, giving Tony a small smile before he picked up one of the remote controllers on the coffee table in front of the TV. “Wanna play some Mario Kart together?” 

“Sure. But just warning you, I’m gonna kick your ass,” Tony remarked and picked up the other remote so he could select the Mario Kart game on the Wii menu pulled up on the TV screen. 

Chan bumped his shoulders against Tony’s. “Oh, you’re so on.” 

Chan and Tony spent the entire morning playing video games with each other as snow continued to blanket the terrain outside. They spent an hour playing Mario Kart and trash-talking each other, as friends do, and they moved on to playing Overcooked, which resulted in them yelling at each other so loudly, that Tony’s dorm-neighbor had to knock and ask them to quiet down. 

Around lunchtime, Chan suggested that he and Tony should have lunch and Tony led him to his kitchen, a perk that he had in his single dorm room, where Chan found a box of brownie mix. “Tony, do you make brownies?” 

“No. I’ve never even opened that brownie mix. It’s probably expired by now,” Tony offhandedly replied as he stuck his head into his fridge, hoping to find food that wasn’t leftovers. 

“It’s actually not. One more week left. You know what that means?” Chan grinned, opening the box. 

Tony laughed and closed the fridge door as he swiveled to face Chan. “Are we actually doing this?” 

“It’s gonna be super unhealthy, but yes. Let’s have brownies for lunch.” 

Surprisingly, Chan was better at baking brownies than Tony was. Tony accidentally made a mess while attempting to measure out half a cup of flour while Chan effortlessly cracked the eggs on the side of the bowel and mixed the ingredients. Chan laughed at the mess Tony made before helping him out, and after half an hour, the brownies were completed and ready to eat.

After the very healthy lunch, Tony and Chan played some board games together, and Tony showed his competitive side. During Monopoly, Tony exaggeratedly whooped whenever Chan had to pay money upon landing on his property and he would proudly declare, “Pay up! I’m gonna be so rich.” 

“Stupid capitalism,” Chan muttered under his breath in response as he begrudgingly handed over the brightly colored fake Monopoly bills. 

Then as the early evening approached, the two watched some TV shows together and even hate-watched _The Big Bang Theory_ for the fun of it as they ate instant noodles for dinner on the couch.

“This is awful. I’m so glad sitcoms now are so much better than this because this is a train wreck,” Tony commented, gesturing to the TV screen with his chopsticks. 

Chan nodded and slurped up some noodles before replying, “Mhm. I’m so glad we have shows like _Community_ that are actually funny unlike… whatever this is.” 

And as the evening progressed, the dorm got colder and colder despite the heating system, and at one point, Chan left the couch and returned wearing a lavender hoodie he found in Tony’s closet. As Chan snuggled up beside Tony, placed his head on Tony’s shoulder, and pulled the blanket that was strewn across both his and Tony’s lap further up his body, Tony didn’t make any remarks but smiled at the sight of how comfortable Chan looked. 

For the rest of the evening, Chan simply watched as Tony played Undertale on his laptop and commented on the quirky characters in the video game. Soon, he fell asleep on Tony’s shoulder to the calming soundtrack of the game, and Tony, out of fear that moving would startle Chan awake, reach over and turn the lamp, which was the only light source still on, off before closing his laptop and falling asleep on the couch next to Chan. 

Tony jolted awake the next morning when he heard a loud knock on the door. After carefully moving Chan’s head onto a pillow, Tony answered the door, not caring that he looked disheveled with his unbrushed hair and rumpled clothes. 

At the door stood Jason and Theo. Tony was confused why they were both at his door, but Theo answered his question before he had a chance to ask. 

“Tony! Thank god you answered the door. Okay, so you know how we were supposed to get a textbook for stats at the beginning of the year? Well I never- wait, is there a guy on your couch?” Theo stood on his tippy toes to peer past Tony’s shoulder to get a better look at the inside of Tony’s dorm. His voice raised significantly as he demanded, “Damn Tony, you got laid last night?” 

“No way! Tony, who did you get lucky with?” Jason craned his neck to try to see the person on Tony’s couch and Tony shifted to block both of their views. 

But by then, Theo and Jason’s heckling had woken up Chan, who sleepily mumbled, “What’s going on?” 

Both Theo and Jason burst out cackling and Tony sighed, giving up on trying to get his friends to stop bothering him. He went to his desk to grab the textbook and heard Jason ask Chan, “Does Tony actually have a micropenis?” 

“I- why would I know?” Chan blearily replied, still trying to shake off his sleepiness. 

Theo gleefully grinned and obnoxiously began, “Because you two fu-” 

“Okay, here’s your textbook. Bye, thanks for stopping by.” Tony shoved the textbook into Theo’s arms and cut Theo off before he could finish his sentence. He slammed the door and turned back towards Chan with a sheepish grin. “Sorry about that. I didn’t know they’d be coming over.” 

“It’s okay,” Chan smiled and Tony’s heart temporarily stopped beating when Tony took in the view of Chan in Tony’s hoodie, which looked giant on his small torso. “We don’t have any brownies left, right?” 

“No, I don’t think we can have brownies for breakfast,” laughed Tony as he headed into the kitchen to prepare breakfast.

There were more snow days as the winter went along and finals slowly approached, meaning Tony had to work longer hours at the coffee shop because he always took off snow days to spend time with Chan. He didn’t really mind working late shifts because, by the end of his shift, it was usually only he and Chan left in the shop. 

When Tony and Chan were alone in the shop, Chan helped Tony prepare for finals against Tony’s will (Tony wanted to talk about something other than school but Chan was determined to make sure Tony could graduate). On the night before finals, it was just the two of them sitting next to each other at a table in the coffee shop as usual and Chan was quizzing Tony on the content he needed to know for his corporate communications class. 

Tony, surprisingly, was answering all of the questions correctly, and once Chan finished quizzing him, Tony asked, “Where have you been all of college? If I had met you earlier, then maybe I wouldn’t have scraped by my classes.” 

“You’re so stupid,” Chan lightheartedly responded, shuffling the notes in order. He glanced down at the papers in his hands before looking up at Tony. 

There was something about how tenderly Chan gazed at Tony that made a light switch on in Tony’s head. “Wait, why are you looking at me like that?” 

  
“Like what?” Chan questioned as he placed the papers flat down on the table. 

Tony swallowed nervously. “Like you want to kiss me.” 

“And what if I do?” Chan retorted half-jokingly, raising an eyebrow as if to challenge Tony. 

“I wouldn’t mind,” Tony admitted honestly as he watched Chan push back a loose strand of hair that fell across the side of his face. 

Assuming that Tony was just messing with him, Chan rolled his eyes. “Haha, very funny.” 

Seeing Chan think that he was only joking made Tony frustrated, so he placed his hands on Chan’s cheeks and pulled him in for a kiss, catching Chan completely off guard. When Tony pulled away, for a moment he was worried that Chan would be horrified. But he was delightfully shocked when Chan kissed him, and on that night in that dimly lit coffee shop in the middle of a college campus covered in snow, Tony fell deeper in love with his best friend. 

And though there were frowns seen everywhere due to the stress of finals, Tony walked into class the next day with a big smile on his face, prepared to face whatever life threw his way.


End file.
